


Ghosts in her Blood

by Dovey



Series: Bittersweet Treats [4]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Haruno Sakura-centric, sorta idk its late im bad at tagging, split personality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-27 04:42:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14417919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dovey/pseuds/Dovey
Summary: After Wave, Inner Sakura changes into a familar face to help Sakura cope with her new reality.





	Ghosts in her Blood

There is blood under her fingernails and in her eyes and in her head, and she is miserable because she knows it isn’t really there.

It’s been a month since their mission in Wave and she can still feel the sting of the damp, copper air in the back of her throat. She can hear Naruto screaming and screaming and screaming, even as she looks at him across the table as he shoves intestines back into him, down his throat- no, it’s just ramen, just chunky filthy _disgusting_ noodles that dangle from her teammates mouth and she is clean and he is safe and the air is hot and smells of miso soup and she is safe.

She’s safe, technically, but she doesn’t feel it.

Ever since Wave she’s been struggling. The walls seem to laugh at her as she fades in and out of the conversation, closing in so tightly and pressing against her and all she can think about is how there’s no easy exit from this room, and that she will die as soon as someone else notices this because you should always kill the weak one first and she is so very, very weak.

Her days a hazy and switch between huge spikes of hyperfocus and paranoia and, when the adrenaline wears out, the uncomfortable exhaustion that rests in her bones and sends her crashing to sleep just to wake up horrified at her lack of control and safety precautions. A sleeping ninja is a dead ninja.

 She knows what death looks like, now. A handsome man with a bandaged up face of brutal scars taunts her nightmares, because she was weak and lived and he was strong and died. His pus-filled, messy scars make her envious, because scars mean survival and she has no such promises to mar her skin.  She does not know him at all, but she’s memorized his bingo book entry and has so many nightmares about him running her through with a sword that she starts to think of him as a companion in her head. A friend who can’t judge her for her twitchy fingers and paranoia and hidden bloodlust because he’s dead, and besides, he had been the same when he was alive. That much was obvious.

She needs to learn how to control herself, or she will be forced to retire before she even becomes a chuunin. She remembers Inner and Outer and carves a space in her head just for that sick, terrified, endlessly on edge part of her that wave had built and she had so steadily fed since her return to Konoha, and she names it Zabuza-san because he can’t hurt her anymore and this is his fault and she is bitter. 

He makes her feel safe. He sets her on edge. She knows he’s really her, at her worst, at her best, at her most vicious and hateful, and she depends on him so much. He’s the only one she can depend on, because Sasuke cares about Naruto and Naruto cares about everyone, enemies and friends alike, and Kakashi cares about Sasuke, and no one cares about Sakura.

No one but Zabuza-san.

Sometimes, Sakura wakes up and she’s somewhere new. She has new bruises or scars and sore muscles, and sometimes she has a new weapon or a jutsu written down with ink on her arm. Her clothes are covered in blood or her hair is a mess. Once, there was a dead body and a shovel.

It took a while to dig the grave, but she figured it was easier than killing him must’ve been, so she manages.

She gets marginally better, but she knows that she’ll never be the one to win a fight. She’s meant for strategy, diplomacy maybe, a medic if she was skilled enough. Sakura should never have been put on a team that was so obviously meant to be frontline warriors, carving destruction in their wake, and she knows it. Zabuza-san would fit right in, though. He’s good at it. She doesn’t let him take over in training- or, more like she asks, and he listens, because he’s nice like that. She doesn’t think she could make him do anything, if he wanted to. But the way he moves and talks tells her that he’d do just fine, in the middle of a battlefield.

She starts to wrap her arms in bandages, like how Zabuza wrapped his face. It’s not the same, but it’s closer, so when she gets twitchy and scared and nervous about the world around her coming for blood, she can look down and remember that she has someone in her corner, now. It helps. It’s not perfect, but it helps, and she’ll take any help she can get.

When she meets the sand nin, the redhead reminds her of Zabuza-san. He’s got the same look in his eyes, even if they act completely different, and she greets him as warm as she can and meets his eyes straight on.

He asks her name. She’s never been focused on before.

“Haruno Sakura.” She tells him, and smiles. “welcome to Konoha.”

“I want to fight you.” He says, and she doesn’t stop smiling, because she knows Zabuza-san and how his kind work. They only know apathy or fighting, and this is the only way this boy knows to interact with people.

“I want to fight you, too.” She replies. She can see the barest trace of a smile on his face when he says that, a faint tug at the corners of his lips.

He might kill her. He probably will, actually, from the way his teammates are acting- but that’s okay. He’d kill _her,_ a girl who he’d singled out, whose name he knew. That’s a better end than any she’d thought she would get since Wave. Zabuza-san approves.

Sasuke is pissed he got ignored, and Naruto’s just thrown. Sakura can’t bring herself to care.

She gets her wish, two days later, when they start the second part of the exams and they run into the boy in the woods.

He’s scary, and awful, but Sakura is smart, and Zabuza-san is cruel, and together they do what they can.

“How many have you killed?” Gaara asks, and his eyes are wild and his smile is vicious, his sand rising to surround him and scatter.

“I don’t know.” She admits, because she doesn’t. At least one, certainly, but probably more. People go missing, in Konoha, and sometimes she wakes up with their specialty jutsu written on her arm.

He likes that answer. He agrees. “There are just so many.” He explains, and adds, “You’ll be a good addition. Mother will be so pleased.”

The way he says it is how she thinks of Zabuza-san, and it makes her laugh. If she dies, it’s by some doppelganger’s hand, then.

Sasuke tries to drag her away, finally having beaten Temari long enough to catch up, and she bites his hand. He pulls back, shocked, and she hisses,

“I’m no coward, Uchiha.”

It’s a lie, to her core, and she knows it. Sakura Haruno runs from fights. She freezes in battle. But Zabuza-san is strong, and he’s earned this body more than she has, so she’ll stay and fight whatever fight he tells her to.

The world fades away, and when she wakes up, there’s blood on her hands and set of scrolls next to her. There’s no way she won, not against that monster, so he must’ve let her go.

She never learns what happened, but her teammates won’t look at her for the rest of the exam, barely talk. When she goes to the water to wash, she takes stock of new injuries and blood that’s not her own, and guesses. She doesn’t ask for answers.

Sometimes she wakes up with a new scroll in her bag. They finish with six of them, and she ignores the way the others look at her. Zabuza-san looks after her, protects her, and if he wants to take out competition or tear her apart, she’ll let him do it. He can do what he wants. He’s the reason she can keep down her meals.

She fails the preliminary rounds, because she doesn’t have it in her to let Ino fight Zabuza-san so she keeps him in her head. Ino tries to climb in next to him, takes one look at him and shrieks. It’s a tie. Ino takes a week to wake up, and when she does, she won’t let anyone so much as mention Sakura near her.

Sakura sits in the stands next to Kakashi-sensei, on the end because Naruto and Sasuke jumped to the other side of their teacher as soon as she sat down. When the stands fall asleep- with Naruto already in the nursing station and Sasuke in the arena- Sakura plays dead.

She can feel what she can’t see, senses the chakra hovering in front of her.

Gaara’s inspecting her, silent and for far longer than she expects. It’s so hard to keep her breathing even, but she does, and she feels something settle on her shoulders before he leaves.

It lifts off her shoulders a few seconds later, and she waits a full minute before finally, _finally_ opening her eyes. She glances up, and hovering above her is Gaara’s sand- she flinches, fully prepared to be crushed to death or otherwise maimed for revealing her hand, but no hit comes.

It’s his mark above her, the one on his head, and when she cautiously stands up it stays there.  

“Oh.” She says.

For the first time since Wave, Sakura doesn’t do anything.

She sits back down, and tries to understand.

The others pass over her, a few flinching at the sight of the sand. It’s protecting her, and she can’t assume why, but-

The Temari girl is standing in front of her, cautious as she is with her brother.

“You want to come with us?” She suggests, voice false-brave.

Sakura likes her. She reminds her of Ino as a kid, confident and pretty and trying to look out for others. She doesn’t know anything about the puppet boy, but she thinks he’d probably be fine, and she’d like to get to know Temari better. She likes Gaara, regardless of how dangerous he is, because he asked for her name and he knows in some sense about Zabuza-san and doesn’t mind.

It’s not a simple question, she knows.

It’s treason to leave, and there’s little chance of Suna and Oto winning even with Gaara on their side. But no one will care if she says yes, except this small family asking in the first place. She doubts Kakashi will even notice her absence.

_Maybe,_ a part of her whispers, _you won’t even need Zabuza-san, with people like these watching your back._

It’s not a simple question, but it has a simple answer.

“Yeah.” Sakura says, and she stands up to shield Temari’s side. “Yeah, I do.”


End file.
